Smart Grid News

Recently, the California Energy Commission awarded two state utility companies $1 million each to further their current smart grid projects. The granted funds are available through the state's Public Interest Energy Research Program.

The first grant was issued to Glendale Water & Power, who have been developing an advanced metering infrastructure project, which will install electric and water AMI in the area. These new smart meters allow for large amounts of data storage and have two-way communications hardware and software. In addition, the project will install more than 83,000 electric meters with remote control switches and more than 33,000 water meters built with leak detection technology. Glendale Water & Power will oversee the project, which is expected to last 55 months.

The other grant was issued to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, which is planning to create and launch a smart grid that includes smart meters for nearly 600,000 customers. Furthermore, the U.S. Department of Energy has donated more than $127 million in funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the project, which costs more than $308 million total.

California has been heavily involved in smart grid promotion, recently passing a bill requiring all major utilities in the state to have smart grid deployment plans in place by 2020.